Pubs to be 'encouraged' to serve healthier food

Related tags Nutrition Food standards agency

Pubs could be made to provide nutritional information about dishes on the menu to help customers identify 'healther' food.A new report into the UK...

Pubs could be made to provide nutritional information about dishes on the menu to help customers identify 'healther' food.

A new report into the UK food market, published by the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit, says that with consumers increasingly eating out-of-home in pubs and restaurants, policies to promote healthy eating need to factor in the foodservice sector more than currently.

As a result, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is to be given increased responsibilites to monitor the nutritional content of food eaten out of home.

The Strategy Unit report, called Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century​ stops short of recommending new regulations forcing food businesses to list nutrional content, but says "the Government will do more to join up its advice to consumers on different food issues, focusing on health, food safety and the environment."

Part of this approach will see the FSA "work with food businesses and consumers to understand what information consumers would find helpful when eating out of the home, and to improve the nutritional standard of the food on offer."

Among the report's conclusions are:

  • Most consumers are still not eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and consume much more saturated fat, salt and added sugar than is good for their health.
  • Around 70,000 fewer people would die prematurely each year in the UK if diets matched the nutritional guidelines.
  • Alongside the social impacts, the economic burdens of diet-related ill health are huge - an estimated £6 billion in additional NHS costs alone

The report also looks at issues such as rising food prices, food waste, biofuels and the environmental inpact of food production.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The rise of popular interest in food policy issues, and growing public awareness of the impact of what we choose to eat on everything from animal welfare, to our health and the protection of the environment has seen a massive transformation in Britain's food culture over the past 10 years.

"This cultural change, along with more recent events in global food markets, has brought new and urgent policy challenges to the fore, which governments must act to meet.

"Recent food price increases are a powerful reminder that access to ever more affordable food cannot be taken for granted, and it is the family finances of the poorest in our society that are hit hardest when food prices rise."

Related topics Healthy options

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